


A Partridge in a Pear Sauce

by OldToadWoman



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Holidays, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22160332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldToadWoman/pseuds/OldToadWoman
Summary: "My first new year with an alien symbiote is going to involve a bit of a learning curve," Eddie mumbled, having no idea that it wouldn't even take three hours before they'd eaten a mugger, robbed a bank, and worked out several of the finer nuances of human-alien sex. Forget the new year,Saturdaywas going to involve a bit of a learning curve.
Relationships: Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote
Comments: 21
Kudos: 110
Collections: Venom Holiday Exchange 2019





	A Partridge in a Pear Sauce

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nununununu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/gifts).



> Written as a pinch-hit for Nununununu's prompt in the 2019 Venom Holiday Exchange.
> 
> Mega-thanks to [autobotscoutriella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/autobotscoutriella) for the emergency beta-read!

Eddie was walking home after a long day. The whole city had that tired worn-down feeling you get after the holidays. Dark, cold, and gloomy without any more parties to look forward to. A few people had already taken down their Christmas lights on New Year's Day. The lights that remained didn't make Eddie feel festive. They made him think of chores left undone. He imagined the city was as tired as he was and taking down last year's decorations was just one more thing no one had the energy to do.

New Year's had been fun when he was younger. At least, he sort of remembered parties and loud music and pretty people, though he was possibly exaggerating the memory of how many parties he had been to in his lifetime and how much fun he'd had at them. He'd never been a party sort of guy.

The first time he remembered feeling sad about New Year's, he'd been in a bar with coworkers. The kind of gathering where you get together and eat and drink and laugh at each other's jokes, but at the same time you're sort of wondering how you ended up stuck with these schmucks. And the TV over the bar had been showing one of those cheerful countdown-to-midnight shows and Barry Manilow came on to reassure everyone…

_It's just another New Year's Eve  
It's just another Auld Lang Syne  
But when we're through this New Year  
You'll see, will be just fine_  


Eddie didn't know what kind of shit Barry Manilow was going through when he wrote that song, but it must have been a pretty bad year if "just fine" was the most uplifting thing he could end it on.

And, fuck it all, now he had Manilow stuck in his head.

People needed to take down their damn holiday decorations.

_~We've made mistakes_  
_But we've made good friends too~_  


Fan-fucking-tastic. Now he had Manilow stuck in _his alien symbiote's head_.

There was only one way to fight an earworm, and so Eddie cleared his throat and belted out: "On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, twelve—" Damn, what was twelve? Was that the drummers drumming or the pipers piping? He was far more confident on the eleven lords a-leaping. "Eleven lords a-leaping, ten something-something." Ladies dancing? Maids a-milking? 

~Ten lords a-leaping~ 

" _Eleven_ lords a-leaping. I'm sure about that one. It's got alliteration. It sounds right."

~Ten.~ 

"Why is my true love buying me _people_ anyway? Maybe it just means theater tickets. Lords a-leaping sounded like ballet maybe."

~You said Christmas is over. If it's twelve days long, it's not over, is it? No one should have taken their lights down yet.~ 

"Yeah, okay," Eddie agreed. "It's not officially over until the Feast of the Epiphany, which is…tomorrow? So we're only up to Lords a-leaping, I think."

He knew where he stood with the birds, so he skipped down to: "On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, seven swans a-swimming, six geese a-laying, **FIVE GOOOOOLD RINGS** …" Eddie was a bit startled, but at least he'd gotten Barry Manilow out of his head. "Four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear **SAUCE**."

"Tree," Eddie said. "The words are 'in a pear _tree_ '."

Venom's voice returned to a non-verbal whisper in his brain: ~Why would you want to eat a _tree_?~

"Who said anything about _eating_ it?"

~Everything else in the song is for eating. The partridge should be in a pear sauce. We like pear sauce.~ 

"You've never had pear sauce. We like _plum_ sauce. I don't even think pear sauce is a thing." Eddie tactfully chose to ignore the several days' worth of people that his symbiote assumed were for eating. "Are you telling me you'd eat gold rings?"

~We like golden rings, especially with the chocolate icing.~ 

"My first new year with an alien symbiote is going to involve a bit of a learning curve," Eddie mumbled, having no idea that it wouldn't even take three hours before they'd eaten a mugger, robbed a bank, and worked out several of the finer nuances of human-alien sex. Forget the new year, _Saturday_ was going to involve a bit of a learning curve.

The mugger was over with quickly enough, though. Eddie was even going to let him get away—but then he made a "joke" that implied he was after more than the woman's purse, so Eddie shrugged and let Venom have his snack.

He didn't like to admit it, but he was walking down the sidewalk with a bit of a jaunty swagger after that. When the symbiote felt recharged, _Eddie_ felt recharged.

He turned the corner and unexpectedly found himself facing a crowd lined up outside a nightclub. It was one of those places that didn't look like anything more than a warehouse during the day, but flashing colored lights accompanied a deep bass beat when the door opened as three people walked out.

Venom piped up and sang to the wrong tune entirely: ~Drummers drumming. Ladies dancing.~

The queue perked up optimistically as exiting patrons apparently signaled there was room for more. The women at the front started fluffing their hair and adjusting their dresses.

The bouncer let the next two women in line in and then, to Eddie's surprise, signaled to Eddie that he could enter.

It was only his symbiote's curiosity that had caused Eddie to even pause by the door. He had no intention of going in and he pointed down the hill intending to say that he'd just been passing by, but the bouncer assumed he was pointing at the line of giggling young women. "The line's just for tourists, sweetheart. You can go right in."

"I hope he's part of the show," one of the women said to her friend, resulting in even more high-pitched giggling.

Eddie was still confused how the bouncer had decided with one glance that he wasn't a tourist, but Venom was nudging him toward the entrance.

~Drummers drumming,~ the symbiote repeated. ~Ladies dancing.~

Screw it. Eddie could go for a beer.

He ducked inside. He'd never seen the point of waiting in line for a club when there were plenty of places that let you in without a wait or a cover charge, but if they were letting him in without the line, there was no harm in checking it out.

~Lords a-leaping,~ his symbiote trilled happily, nudging his attention to a fit young man spinning acrobatically around a pole.

Eddie caught himself feeling a little surprised that he could still hear the symbiote's whispering voice so clearly in the cacophony. The guy was in his brain. His ears weren't involved at all. _Of course_ he could still hear him clearly.

"You know, I think we've finally found a place where we can talk in public without people thinking I'm crazy," Eddie whispered. An entire club full of people failed to notice Eddie talking to his imaginary friend. Venom just kept humming Christmas carols.

Eddie located the bar and immediately cringed at the price list. He figured this kind of place would be on the pricey side, but he didn't think it would be that bad. He intended to order the cheapest beer they had, but then he spotted a pear cider. "If I buy you a pear cider, you have to agree to stop singing," Eddie said.

~And one of those.~ 

A waiter was picking up a tray of excessively-fruited tropical drinks. Eddie rolled his eyes.

He tried to wave the bartender over, but Venom hijacked his hand to get a periscope view of the waiter delivering the drinks to a table in front of the stage.

"Stop it," Eddie hissed.

~They are engaging in some sort of fertility ritual with large phallic symbols.~ 

"They're not…" Eddie craned his neck for a better view and then corrected himself. Those were dildoes. Yup. Definitely dildoes. "Uh… I think it's a bachelorette party."

A man Eddie had never met before leaned into his side like they were long-lost friends. "I _know!_ Isn't it awful? This used to be _our_ space and now it's all being taken over by bridal showers and gawking sorority girls."

It took half a second for it to click, and then Eddie realized. "Oh! Tourists! I get it now." Exclusive clubs let pretty girls cut the line and made average Joes like Eddie pay a cover charge. _This_ place had let _Eddie_ cut the line. "Hey, Venom," Eddie whispered, turning away from his new friend. "You get this? They let me in because I'm pretty."

~Of course you are pretty. You are the prettiest human here.~ 

Eddie was fairly sure it counted as alien sarcasm, but the symbiote snaked out a tendril and caressed the left side of his face in an oddly reassuring gesture.

The man on his right tapped his arm to reclaim his attention. "They should rename it _The Treehouse_ and put a big 'No Girls' sign out front. Am I right?"

Eddie had no idea what the club was called to begin with, but he couldn't see that going over well. "Some of us like girls too. Maybe they could rename it _The Frying Pan_ and let everyone in," he said.

The man rolled his eyes and walked away. Eddie shook his head. It wasn't a great pun, but it wasn't that bad.

Eddie finally got the bartender's attention. He ordered a pear cider for Venom and a fruity monstrosity also for Venom with extra rum for himself. He handed over his credit card but didn't release his grip until he'd warned the bartender, "You'll want to run that before you spend time making the drinks. I'm a _little_ close to my limit."

A little close was an understatement. Eddie gave it a fifty-fifty shot of coming back rejected. He was unemployed, and thanks to his reputation, essentially unemployable. He'd been draining his savings for months just to keep the rent paid. There wasn't much left.

~We should rob a bank.~ 

"We can't just… that's not how… I don't know why I waste my time trying to explain ethics to a guy who just ate somebody."

~I'm still hungry,~ Venom complained. 

"You literally _just_ ate."

~He was skinny. Also bland. We should carry hot sauce.~ 

"No! It's enough I let you eat bad guys. You do _not_ get to put hot sauce on them."

The credit card went through and the waiter brought their drinks and a tall attractive man slipped into the vacancy at his right.

The newcomer _definitely_ didn't have to wait in line. Eddie was pretty sure he wasn't the prettiest at the ball anymore. "Hey."

~Hrmph.~ 

"A word to the wise," the man said. "They overcharge on all the fruity drinks to fleece the party crowd. The cheapest way to get hammered around here is The Zombie."

"That's still served with fruit, isn't it?"

"Just a cherry." And to demonstrate his point, he popped a cherry in his mouth stem and all. He spat out the pit and a moment later showed off the stem neatly tied in a knot.

Eddie's nether regions had been feeling particularly lonely of late. And this very good looking man was clearly flirting. Venom rankled.

~Give me cherries! I will tie them in all the knots you want!~ 

"Have some pear sauce," Eddie said quietly and chugged the cider. He followed it up with the fruity rum drink and Venom might have eaten an umbrella, but his new friend at the bar didn't seem to notice. 

Someone at the bachelorette table shrieked loudly enough that it carried over the sound of the music. Eddie and his symbiote both tensed for battle, but it turned out to be just more squealing as the dancer pulled off another athletic move. 

God, _he_ was pretty too. They were all pretty. An entire club full of unnaturally beautiful people that he couldn't have sex with.

"Could you excuse me for a moment? Don't go anywhere, okay?"

Eddie headed towards the toilets at the back of the club, but given the cover of all the background noise, he didn't wait for privacy before he started talking.

"Okay, here's the thing. I'm a little rusty, but I'm pretty sure that guy was flirting. And even if I strike out there, I've got a solid chance with _somebody_ in this club. So if you could just slither home without me and not wait up, that'd be great."

~Is this about the fertility ritual those women were celebrating. Is it your time to spawn? You wish to make Brocklings?~ 

"No! God, no Brocklings! Humans don't have a specific time to spawn. But I'm not looking for kids anyway."

~You wish to mate with someone in this club, but you wish the mating to be unsuccessful?~ 

"That's not the point. Every so often we just need a little… intimacy."

~We are intimate now.~ 

The music was still loud, but somewhat muted as Eddie entered the restroom, and it gave him a good excuse to not answer for a moment. He walked to the farthest stall and stepped inside.

"Okay, so let's say I go home with somebody. I need you to promise to just, like, hang out in the bathtub or something until we're done. Okay?"

~No.~ 

"Why not?"

~You are mine.~ 

"That's very selfish. You can share."

~Fine. I will share. I will not wait in the bathtub. We will have sex with the man at the bar. Or possibly the tasty one who spins on the pole.~ 

"No, not 'we', just me. _Me_ sex pretty man! No 'we'!"

Eddie leaned against the stall door and sighed. _Get it together, Brock._

~Not fair.~ 

"Please, listen to me, it's kind of important that the world doesn't know I have an alien symbiote inside of me. Okay, you get that?"

~What does that have to do with sex?~ 

"I realize that basic human autonomy is a new concept to you, but we have this little thing on our planet called consent. You are not allowed to have sex with people who don't even know you're in the room. That's called immoral."

~Like eating muggers?~ The symbiote was sounding smug. Venom thought he'd scored a point.

" _Worse_ than eating muggers. _Worse._ Look, doing bad things to bad people is still bad, but it's less bad than doing bad things to not-bad people."

The symbiote was stubbornly silent.

"I'm not saying it's impossible to find someone whose kink is to have sex with an alien, but even if we found that person _we wouldn't be able to tell them about you_."

Venom detached himself—Itself? Themself? They needed to have a conversation about names and pronouns soon. It was giving Eddie a headache—at Eddie's waist and for just a moment Eddie thought he was going to fully detach. Instead, the symbiote slithered out into the air forming a separate head to face him.

"So, you object to me specifically having sex with another human."

His voice rumbled over the sound of the music and Eddie shushed him but agreed, "Yes. Precisely."

"Thus we are limited to having sex only with each other?"

"What?"

The symbiote nodded to itself (Himself?) and said, "I accept your terms."

"What?!"

"Do you wish to have sexual relations here in the club or first return to your domicile?"

"Okay, first of all, what the hell? Second of all, I'm not sure a blob of goo and a human can even have sex unless you're just talking about being along for the ride while I jerk it, which is not the same thing as sex _at all_. And thirdly, dammit, there was a third thing. I don't remember the third thing. I'm kind of hung up on 'what the hell' and 'sex with a blob of goo' frankly."

"I can be as solid as you need me to be," Venom insisted, "and I can tie _anything you want_ into a knot with my tongue."

"That came out a little scarier than you might have intended it," Eddie said, but his symbiote had to be aware that Eddie was now erect and not nearly as freaked out as he thought he should be.

"Do you wish to perform a penetrative act? I can provide any orifice you desire."

"Your sexy talk needs some work," Eddie said, but as he did so the symbiote reshaped itself ( _Her_ self?!), offering up the promised orifices. Human-shaped mouths, anuses, vaginas in a variety of shapes and sizes. "That is so weird."

"Or would you prefer to be penetrated?"

The wall-o-holes was replaced by a single penis.

"Just one?" Eddie asked, trying to sound flippant. "I don't get a dozen to choose from?"

"This is the best one," Venom said. "Don't you recognize it?"

Eddie blinked. "Is that… mine?"

He'd obviously never seen his own cock from this angle before, but that's what that was. Venom had copied every curve, every vein.

Venom leaned in and licked Eddie's jaw.

The music blasted louder as the bathroom door opened, reminding Eddie that they were still technically in a public place even if they probably wouldn't be the first people to use that stall for more than its intended purpose.

"Not here," he whispered, barely choking out the word, "Home."

Venom slithered back into place under Eddie's skin.

" _That_ was the third of all," Eddie said, trying to calm himself. "I am not having sex in a public bathroom."

~Acceptable.~ 

He mentally rehearsed an excuse about getting a phone call about a cousin having a car accident, but he didn't need to worry. By the time he made his way through the crowd, the attractive man had made a new friend, so he just slipped out. The line outside didn't appear to have gotten shorter, and he wondered if the line had cycled through already or if it was mostly the same people from earlier still waiting their turn.

"I recommend The Zombies," he said as he walked by. "The Fruitzillas are overpriced."

Venom made him stop at a fried chicken place on the way home, because, of course, he was still hungry. But their luck and Eddie’s credit had finally run out. Rejected.

Eddie walked out of the fried chicken place empty-handed.

~ _Now_ can we rob a bank?~>

"No." Eddie put his cellphone to his ear to avoid attracting attention as they talked.

~You said that doing bad things to bad people isn't that bad.~ 

"Banks aren't people."

~Are the people who own banks good people or bad people?~ 

"On the whole, I'm going to say bad people, but the people who work in the banks, the customers, the innocent bystanders…"

~Isn't this what automation is for? To cut out the middleman?~ and without even a pause he added ~This way~ and jerked Eddie's body down an alley.

"Hey! What have we talked about? You can't just take over without warning me."

~Warning: taking over now.~ 

"Tha—" Eddie muttered, the sarcastic thanks cutting out as he was enveloped.

Venom sent out a tendril, writhing along the shadows and up the side of a wall, slipping up behind and then over a police security camera. Another in the other direction and the only two cameras covering this block were blind. Another tendril stretched out along a wall until it reached an ATM that Eddie hadn't even noticed. With that machine's camera also covered, Venom moved his primary mass in front of it, and then slid out a tiny symbiote strand no thicker than a piece of spaghetti. It slipped inside the cash slot and poked around inside. Eddie had not previously considered that _Automatic Teller Machines_ were on the list of things Venom could tie into a knot with his tongue.

Money began to stack up in the tray. Venom made a pocket of himself to stash it away and then launched himself up onto the roof of a nearby building, releasing the film over the cameras only when they were safely out of sight.

"What the fuck, dude?" Eddie laughed, falling back to lie on the roof. He was trying to sound mad, but the laugh ruined it. "We eat people. We rob ATMs. I'm starting to think we might not be the good guys."

Venom relaxed into a puddle pillowing Eddie's body. "On the plus side," the alien said, "we did not have sex with anyone in the club without their consent and eating the mugger could be considered morally neutral."

"Yeah, he was kind of a dick," Eddie agreed.

"And now we have money to buy birds."

"Birds?"

"You wanted birds. We have the funds with which to purchase them."

"When did I say wanted birds?"

"You were singing about them earlier. We could go back to that fried chicken stand or we could go over to that Chinese restaurant you like and get duck with pear sauce."

"Plum sauce," Eddie corrected automatically. "I was just trying to get fucking 'It's Just Another New Year's Eve' out of my head." _Tonight's another chance to start again_ "And… it's back. Quick, know any catchy songs?"

"I like the one about eating figgy pudding."

"You would."

**Author's Note:**

> Venom and Eddie are both correct. There are multiple versions of _The Twelve Days of Christmas_ and the "lords a-leaping" have moved around considerably with versions placing them anywhere from the ninth to the twelfth day and in one version replaced with "lads a-louping" (that one also put "a very pretty peacock upon a pear tree"). Do not google this at 2AM as it is a never-ending earwormhole of folk song lyrics. One version has "collie dogs" instead of "calling birds" (the oldest, and theoretically correct, written version says they are "colly birds"). And further alternate lines include "ships a-sailing", "bells a-ringing", "asses running", "hares a-running", "badgers baiting", "boys a-singing", "cocks a-crowing", "bears a-beating" … I don't know what this song is actually about, but I think "my true love" might have some issues.
> 
> Also, the more you look at the lyrics to "It's Just Another New Year's Eve", the sadder it gets. I hope you're okay now, Barry.


End file.
